


Breathe

by should_i_say_it_like_a_spy



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 13:19:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14473569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/should_i_say_it_like_a_spy/pseuds/should_i_say_it_like_a_spy
Summary: Every moment he's gone it gets harder to breathe.





	Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> I've been meaning to edit and post Safi and Theron's stories here, but instead I wrote a whole new one, and I figured I might as well get it up here before The Nathema Conspiracy comes out and ruins all of my headcanons. Also, I wrote and edited this in the space of approximately an hour, and it's late, so if there are any glaring errors I'm sorry and I will fix them after I've had some sleep :)

Every moment he’s gone it gets harder to breathe. Sometimes, before he left, it had felt like he was the only thing keeping back the darkness that pressed around her, the cold that reached out sharp, burning fingers for her soul. Now, there is nothing protecting her but a memory.

Some days are better than others. Some days, she can put all of her questions into an equation and come up with an answer that makes sense. He’d never missed a shot in his life, so why hadn’t his blaster fire connected with either her or Lana? If he’d been after the Adegan crystals, why had he left so many behind for the Alliance to find? How had the best spy the Republic had ever had managed to leak his location and have a message intercepted so close together? And why, if he hadn’t wanted the Alliance to follow, had he left behind the pieces of the holomap for them to put back together? On the good days, the answer is clear: “I would do anything to protect you,” he had said, voice low, eyes locked on hers, and behind those words she had heard others: “I love you.”

But as many good days as there are, there are more bad. Days where fanaticism has dulled his edges, when his mistakes just show that he isn’t the same man he had been. Had the continued declarations of love, even after his betrayal, been meant to distract, to soften, so that she wouldn’t be able to do what’s needed? Had anything he’d ever said to her been true?

There is no one to talk about it with. Once, she would have taken her troubles to him, but what was she supposed to do when he _was_ the trouble? Lana was a good friend—“Get some sleep, dearest,” she said, or “Don’t worry, we’ll find him,”—but as far as Safi could tell, the Sith had no questions about his guilt, and she didn’t want to strain their relationship any more than it already was lately by voicing her conflicted feelings.

She sits on the couch in their—her—quarters, staring at a datapad, not really seeing the screen but knowing what it says anyway. Nathema. Surely she should have guessed that this was where the map would lead, but the Force knew she hadn’t been at the top of her game in the last few months. Even now, when she should be out overseeing preparations for the upcoming mission, she found herself unable to muster the willpower it would take to even stand, much less engage with another person.

What would they find on Nathema?

She hardly sleeps anymore, but when she does, her dreams are filled with his broken body, his disembodied voice asking her, “Why didn’t you trust me? Why didn’t you save me?” Or he stands before her, cold, cruel, asking how deluded she must be to think he could ever love someone like _her._ Either scenario fills her with a sick sense of dread, makes her feel like vomiting and screaming all at once.

After Ziost, when they had both been too wrapped up in their own grief to recognize it in each other, another time she had felt completely alone, she had meditated by finding the imprint his Force signature had left on her mind. Even though he couldn’t access the Force, it flowed through him with a blinding intensity, and the warm, golden sun of his presence was a balm to her spirit. Night after night, morning after morning, she had basked in that glow, until the light had grown so bright that she was able to find herself again.

At the time she hadn’t known the consequences her actions would have, but if she had, she probably would have done it anyway. The two of them had always shared a connection, but her meditations had nurtured it, strengthened it, until even he could feel it pulsing between them. He would never be truly Force sensitive, but he could sense _her_ emotions better even than Lana, and could feel her presence. When she had told him that he was a sun to her, he’d said she was a cool breeze and still water, calm and serene, focusing and relaxing all at once.

Right after he had gone, she had tried to reach him through the Force, but she had been too hurt and angry and bewildered for it to work, and the feel of him that still lingered at the back of her mind was too full of emotion to bring any kind of peace to her as it once had. She couldn’t even say his name—the last time had been during her desperate message to the galaxy: “I love you, Theron. Come home.” Since then, she hasn’t said it once, hasn’t even _thought_ it, but…

“Theron.” It stumbles across her lips like a despairing prayer, and all at once, she understands that none of what she’s been agonizing over for months matters. She loves him, Force help her, no matter what he’s done or is going to do, whether he’s the same man she remembers or has become something new, so she has to at least try.

She stands from the couch, climbing the steps to the platform where their bed sits. She hasn’t slept here since Theron (and it’s a relief to hear his name again, even in her head) left, but now she sits cross-legged on top of the covers, her hands resting lightly on her knees, her shoulders rolling back into that familiar, comfortable position that she hasn’t lost even after all these months of stubbornly refusing to meditate, afraid of what she might find if she did.

Her mind falls into old paths easily, and it isn’t long before that golden light fills the space behind her eyelids, and, oh, it feels like home. She almost loses her concentration then, relief so sharp that it’s painful swelling up inside her, but she pushes it down and holds on. This isn’t her goal, after all—the glow around her is merely what he left behind with her, not actually him. But there is a thin gold thread disappearing into the darkness—and how thin, fragile as spider silk, when it used to be grounded and mighty as an uneti tree—and she follows it, her mind racing across unfathomable distances in the blink of an eye.

She can tell when she gets close. The void of Nathema is unmistakable, and she can feel it blurring her edges, hungrily siphoning the Force within her into its endless depths. Still, she pushes on, determined to find him, shielding herself from the grasping mouth of the void as much as possible.

Perhaps it’s due to the void, or the wear of six months undercover— _please let him be undercover_ —or disillusion that’s set in after the shine of something new wears off, but when she finds him at last, his shields are cracked and weaker than she’s ever felt them. He’s taken them down for her before, shared his most intimate secrets—at least, she thinks he has—but when he has them up, they’ve always been impenetrable. Not so, now, and though she hesitates for a moment at the thought of violating his privacy, she still finds a suitable crack and slips through.

 

 

He knows the moment her mind touches his. He’s hungered for her for months, wanted nothing more than to feel her body against his, the soft, blue light of her Force washing over him like a benediction. He knows how unlikely it is that he’ll ever feel either again; she probably hates him, and with good reason, but he also knows that he didn’t have a choice. How many times in the past had he failed to protect her? Somehow, she’d managed to come through each failure, but he couldn’t risk it this time.

No matter his determination to keep her safe, he still hadn’t been strong enough to do everything he should have. That day on the train, he was supposed to tell her that he didn’t love her anymore, supposed to make it easier on her to do what needed to be done, but as he had looked into her eyes, seen that shattered expression that somehow still had a thread of hope woven into it, he couldn’t stop the words. “You know I love you,” he had said, and he hopes that she does know, even as he fears she doesn’t, not anymore.

All of this flits through his mind in less than a second, less than the time it takes him to breathe her name.

“Safi.” Thank the Force he’s alone, because he doesn’t know how he would explain that away. He calls out to her sometimes in his sleep, and when he’s questioned he says that he dreams of her the way she used to be—which isn’t a lie, but they take it differently than he means it.

He doesn’t know if she can hear him—for all his early training in the Force, as far as he knows this bond between them is pretty much uncharted territory—but he tries anyway.

_Safi, what are you doing here? It isn’t safe—_

Her voice, soft and echoing, like she’s whispering from the far end of a tunnel, interrupts his thoughts, filling his mind, her words resounding through every part of him.

_Theron, I found you. I found you._

She sounds like she’s laughing and crying all at once, and he feels like he might, too, if he weren’t so frightened.

_Safi, you have to leave!_ He doesn’t know if other Force-sensitives can pick up on her presence, but he can’t risk it, not now, not when he’s so close to saving her.

_I just needed to feel you,_ he hears. _But I can’t keep this up for much longer, so listen. I can feel how exhausted you are, how weak your shields are, but we’re coming soon. I’m coming, my love, so just hold on a little bit longer._

He can’t suppress a shudder at her words. He doesn’t _want_ her here, doesn’t want her anywhere near the Order, but just as she can feel him, he can feel her. He can feel her desperation, her despair, her hurt and her doubt—but more than any of those things, he can feel her love, and he knows what it will drive her to do. After all, it was love that got him where he is now, the kind of love that said, “Damn everything else, I will keep you safe.” He recognizes his own love in her and knows that there is no stopping her.

He says the only thing he can, wraps it in everything he feels and pours every ounce of himself into it, determined to make her understand as best he can, just in case he doesn’t get another chance.

_I love you._

Somehow, he feels her lips brush against his for the briefest of moments before she responds, _I love you, too_ —and she’s gone.

 

 

Back on Odessen, Safi opens her eyes. It takes her no time at all to rise from the bed and don her armor, ready to present a strong face for the rest of the Alliance. She is still unsure, still angry, still so frightened she can barely see straight—but none of that matters. She takes a deep breath, and for the first time in a long time, it feels like her lungs are full.

It’s time to bring Theron home.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! Hopefully, more Safi/Theron stuff will be posted soon, but I make no promises.


End file.
